


In the Shadows

by SugarsweetRomantic



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F, Self-Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:39:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarsweetRomantic/pseuds/SugarsweetRomantic
Summary: "Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." ~ Norman Cousins





	In the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Please note the warnings in the tags.

The veil had fallen. Joan Ferguson had escaped her plywood sarcophagus, leaving only an earthen catafalque in her wake.

 

**_Wie ein schwarzer Vogel // Stolz und allein // Ja, ich weiß, du bist der Tod // Und alle fürchten dich_ ** **_  
_ ** _ Like a black bird // Proud and alone // Yes, I know you are Death // And all fear you _

 

Vera had expected herself to feel a sense of victory. A distinct hint of pride. The woman had outsmarted her officers, but by this had also removed herself from Vera's daily life. She had expected to feel more. More than emptiness. More than sadness, regret. Empathy, even?

 

**_Doch ich denk’ an dich // Was immer ich auch tu’_ ** **_  
_ ** _ Yet I think of you // No matter what I do _

 

It had been months, and yet Joan’s iron grip on Vera had not ceased to affect her every action, her every move, her every thought. Vera was convinced she was losing her connection to reality. She thought she saw the ex-Governor everywhere she went - not just in the correctional facility, but in the grocery store, in her car, in her bedroom. She could feel her confident smirk tarnish the clothing on her back and stigmatize the smooth alabaster skin. Pressing a blade into the perfect porcelain covering her sides offered a short moment of alleviation, but only for a moment. The sanguine liquid dripping onto the cream-coloured tiles of her childhood bathroom mocked her, reminding her of the incessant reverberating castigation in her mind:  _ You will never achieve perfection. _

 

**_Niemand versteht mich so wie du_ ** **_  
_ ** _ No-one understands me like you _

 

Death was a remarkably peculiar phenomenon. For Meg Jackson, it had been near justice; karma, if one believed in such a thing. For Bea Smith, it had been revenge and deliverance - a death similar to that of the Redeemer, a martyr crucified by the personification of self-serving superbia and avarice. She suspected Iman Farah had felt a sort of deliverance as well when Joan Ferguson snapped her neck - Vera had never believed Franky would jeopardise her one and only chance at freedom in such a way. Francesca Doyle was a scared little girl with impulsive aggression issues, but no cold-blooded killer. She had a conscience at her disposal. Iman had gotten what she wanted, or that is what she had believed during the flash of satisfaction Franky had described her as having had at the instance her cervical spine had been snapped, neatly, between C4 and C5. The autopsy had stated it had been done with such precision that the common carotid arteries looked almost like they had been slashed with a number 15C surgical scalpel. This was not the modus operandi of a scorned girl - this was planned. This was done in moderation. Yet there was no proof.

 

**_Lösch die Erinn’rung in mir aus // Gib meiner Seele ein Zuhaus’_ **

_ Erase the memory in me // Give my soul a home _

 

It was nearly poetic, sitting in the very same location she had given her mother the fatal dose of morphine hydrochloride. Respiratory depression had been a peaceful way to go - perhaps too peaceful for the modern-day Xanthippe, but the acidic salt had served its function just fine. She would not allow herself such serenity, though a case of aichmophobia originating in her juvenility caused her to apply lignocaine before anything else. It seemed almost too simple. The peripheral venous catheter inserted itself into the median cubital vein with ease, and the empty syringes looked metaphoric. Three hundred cubic centimetres of air forced their way into her bloodstream. The atrial septal defect she was aware she had would allow the large embolism to travel to the sinistral side of her heart, and onwards to her brain or coronary arteries. Death by being full of air. How fitting.

 

**_Die Welt sucht vergebens den Sinn deines Lebens // Denn du gehörst nur mir_ **

_ The world searches in vain for the meaning of your life // Since you belong only to me _

 

Two weeks later, a single purple rose - enchantment - was placed on the modest grave by a slender hand. The digits were protected from the stabbing thorns by smooth black leather. The words escaped the bearer’s lips before they could be analysed by the brain.

“I had such high hopes for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This certainly has been darker than my average work.
> 
> The lyrics used come from "Schwarzer Prinz" and "Der Schleier Fällt" from the musical Elisabeth, which in itself is a marvellous work of art, especially when performed by Pia Douwes as Sissi and Uwe Kröger as Death. It is available on YouTube with both German and English subtitles, at https://youtu.be/IGz4qseaxDs.
> 
> This work was directly inspired by their rendition of these characters, as while re-watching it recently I noticed a remarkable similarity between the relationships between Elisabeth & Der Tod and Vera & Joan.


End file.
